Posts Tagged ‘green juices’

I got up at 6:30 this morning – don’t ask me why. I lingered in bed a bit, did my intentions and meditations for the day and then got up. There’s lots to do this morning!

This morning’s juice was huge – I’m still drinking it. It contained:

beets
carrotsa WHOLE lotta kale
green apple
oranges

I typically like the kitchen sink variety of juices – where I put in what I have and see what happens. I found a couple beets in the fridge and decided to put them in.

Now I’m full from juice. I am sure I will be peeing a lot again today. 🙂

I’m off to see about meeting a realtor, seeing what I can do to get this Vitamix order out and then I’m off to do a follow up with my ND for some blood tests I had done a couple weeks ago.

More to follow…

Afternoon time! Busy day thus far. Went to see the realtor and then went to a follow up DRs appt in town. Then drove back and helped at the tail end of getting boxes on palettes for Vitamix. Took a photo or two and will post that here.

Was HUNGRY at around 11 but was out and didn’t bring anything to munch. I made a smoothie today for lunch (a little more substantial)

banana
orange
an entire head of lettuce
blueberries
coconut kefir

It’s good and once again filling me up. OK, I’m off to do some orders. I’ll write more after dinner. OH YES! Here are the photos:

Evening! The dinner smoothie/juice was:

celery
radish greens
kale
carrots

and then I put it in the blender with an avocado, dulse and some dashes of hot sauce. It was good and I sucked it down pretty quickly. I drank it outside – once again it was a beautiful evening out there.

Right now I’m going to do some journaling. Time to delve into something a little deeper within myself.

Here I am again, doing a short juice/smoothie fast. The reason: In the last year or so that I had chocolate sights, smells and tastes so nearby, I succumbed to chocolate again. (Who wouldn’t when it’s being made right in your place?!) 🙂 I was off all caffeine and sugars for over 2 years and then started up with a bang. I have to admit I can get pretty darn addicted to this stuff. I’m serious. I recognize it as an addiction because I can’t seem to get enough of it… So this fast is a break. I technically started this break in NJ when I was there for 2 weeks recently. I greatly reduced chocolate and sugar intake while I was there and so it seemed good to take a real break now. I would have done it immediately upon my return but had SO many things scheduled for that first week back that it made sense to pick a quieter week. (However I write this and I already have something planned for so many days this week…)

This morning’s juice was 32 oz in size and contained:

celery
kale
cuke
green apples
carrot
orange

it was pretty heavy on the cuke but nice to drink first thing.

I got up early this morning and immediately began posting up things for sale on craigslist. We have to weed down some inventory to make room for new endeavors. I’ve been wanting to post up that list since March so it’s a long time coming but I was grateful for the gumption to post it. I put a link to it on the cafe page: http://www.vt-fiddle.com/rawfood/fiddle_heads_cafe.php. Anyway, I worked for several hours on this. I posted so much that craiglist told me to slow down. I hope it’s going to be OK. 🙂

The afternoon came and I was getting hungry. I ate a mango that was very sweet but very fibrous. Still, it tasted yummy. I went over to the cafe and took more photos of things I wanted to sell and then came back to make another juice. This one I plumped up more like a smoothie.

In this juice/smoothie, the ingredients were:

oranges
a WHOLE LOTTA mesclun mix
celery
carrots

and then I added bananas and 1 apple. YUM. this was a delicious drink. I drank about 32 oz of it. It went down pretty easily.

The afternoon was pretty relaxed by comparison to how other days have been going and I welcomed it. I posted more items for sale and then spent time listening to a book on tape. I had a nice chat with an old friend and then it was time to get dinner ready for everyone.

Dinner for me was:

celery
kale
parsley
cuke
tomato

and then I threw the juice from that into the blender and added 1/2 avocado, dulse and a few shots of vital heat.

The night has been so nice and I went outside to drink on the grass. Very nice. I enjoyed it immensely. The avocado made it very filling and the dulse and vital heat (hot sauce) made it savory tasting which I have found from previous fasts that I enjoy at night.

The rest of the night is before me. My mood is calm and I’m just riding the wave of doing very little.

I had an excellent Sunday. I’m very grateful to be able to slow down on my days off now. Before it was difficult – always felt guilty or pressure to do something, finish something, clean something, produce something. Today I moved my body, cleaned up my desk, did some bills and then did some painting. I also set out today to change just a bit in the way I’m eating.

I love all the food I eat, I just don’t necessarily like the order in which I eat it. Let me explain. When I feel my best, I’m drinking the majority of my meals: I’d have a green juice in the morning, a green smoothie in the afternoon and then a big salad with some cooked veggies for dinner. The dinners end up feeling the heaviest and I go to bed feeling very weighed down. For a long time I’ve wanted to make my biggest meal be in the afternoon but wasn’t sure how to accomplish that exactly. Too many variables with work and what about social events?

I came to a realization just a few days ago that there’s no need to wait anymore. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, so it’s time to just do it.

The morning green juice was delicious and I shared it with my family:
collards
parsley
green apple
celery
carrots
orange

I then did almost 10 miles on the stationary bike and did a few hand weights. I felt hungry though, so it was time to have lunch. I had:
baby greens
some of the cottage pie that I made in class on Saturday
some of the cooked sweet potato that I had made a couple days ago
sprouted sunflower seeds
a tiny bit of miso dressing

The kids looked at me and said, “Wow! You are hungry?” I told them that I wanted to switch dinner time with lunch time and see how it felt.

I went through some items and organized/cleared off my desk. Paid some bills. Dinner time came and I made a big green smoothie:
banana
cranberries
goji berries
rice protein powder
strawberries
collars
sprouted sunflower seeds
VM green
water

It was pretty darn thick. It tasted good but was too heavily citrusy for me. I drank about 3/4 of it and felt very very full but not heavily full. It’s 10:30 pm and I still feel quite good.

I’m going to adjust QTYs and continue on seeing how this works. I’ll be interested to see how this works while traveling as well as working. Wish me luck!

this question wasn’t directed to me personally but to a whole group of people. I did respond to it and wanted to post it here. I’m hoping it is helpful to the questioner and potentially to others as well…

QUESTION: Anyone know of any good resources for supplements/herbal medicines/foods/anything else that can support you while you’re taking chemo? My aunt has just been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the lymph nodes and starts chemo next week.

ANSWER:
Hi there,

This is an interesting email for me to see personally and I’m going to speak candidly here from my experience and what I would do if I was in your aunt’s shoes and then in your shoes. My journey to food, health etc began when I watched my mother have cancer, be on chemotherapy, radiation and not yet FDA approved drugs also while watching my neighbor and who I considered to be a “surrogate second dad” on the end stages of diabetes simultaneously. To answer your question below, I’d recommend herbs that support the liver first and foremost, however, being on chemotherapy is literally taking poison in one pill and then taking other drugs to make sure that vital organs don’t shut down so that the poison can do its thing. So adding herbs to the mix will take a lot more care and planning so that they really support and don’t complicate matters. Since this is in the lymph system, more care needs to be directed to draining/caring/supporting the immune system and the lymph. I’d actually recommend having her get a “scholarship” and going to Hippocrates in Florida for their healing program but if she doesn’t want to, she can do many things to support and care for herself.

I recently met a woman who refused chemotherapy – she’s a fellow “jersey girl” who now lives in VT if your aunt wants to interview her. Her doctor gave her 3 months to live and told her to take chemotherapy. She refused. She did have surgery though and she supported herself with herbs and food and other modalities. She used things like essiac tea for the liver and still takes it and swears by it to this day. That was 15 years ago for her. I love her story. If your aunt wants, I can connect her to you. Her doctor who had threatened to refuse to be her doctor because she refused treatment then asked her to go “on the road” with him to universities to show how alternative treatments can be more than complimentary.

I also am friends with a woman who, on her 2nd bout of breast cancer and while on radiation went on raw/living food. Her oncologist told her that fresh fruits and vegetables were bad for her while on radiation. She not only made it through 30+ days of radiation and still was able to function and work (and felt good which is something people say is not possible while on radiation – even her oncologist was floored), she has continued on over 6 years now in a healthy body. She says her body is alkaline now and no disease can enter because her inner environment is no longer conducive for disease to thrive. I can connect you to her as well. Her story is also amazing because she did the mainstream modalities along with her own and has succeeded (and then some!) She’s in her 50s and has more energy than me!

Other than that, I’d recommend greens superfoods for the supplement question – something like VitaMineral green or Pure Synergy (although Pure Synergy has potent herbs in it.) I’d recommend eating fermented miso and eating seaweeds to help pull the junk out of the body. I’d recommend green juices/smoothies to be on the top choices for food support and HEALTH. Not eating sugar, meat, dairy, stimulants or refined anything would be top on the list too. Meat/dairy acts as a fertilizer for disease, illness, obesity, heart disease, etc (please refer to “The China Study” for the longest, largest and only peer reviewed nutritional study out there.) Sugar and refined foods and processed foods also feed/fuel cancer cells (and other illnesses, too.) It’s something like 1 TBSP sugar shuts down the immune system for 2 hours so if you ever want to know where your cold or flu came from, check your diet first… Cultured veggies are good but in a cancer environment, it’s recommended to keep the cultured veggies simple (only fermented cabbage or only fermented radishes but not mixing them into a kim chee type thing.) Diet would have to change. People can say that that is too hard for them but for me, cutting me open or giving me pills with horrific side effects is too hard for me. My head/heart tells me I’ll do a green juice fast first and feel uncomfortable in the short term because it is the least invasive thing that might/would produce long term benefit. It’s also the cheapest medication/treatment/prevention, out there. A wise elderly woman recently stated at a showing we did of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead that she always thought organic food was too expensive until she went to the hospital and got a $10,000 bill – she said, “suddenly organic food seemed cheap to me!” It’s all about choices and priorities and more choices. 🙂

If this were me, I’d do this first before invasive and potentially devastating “therapies” like chemotherapy. (I had always said that I would eat raw/living foods if I ever got cancer and wondered why I would wait until a major illness set in to begin. So I began my living foods journey 10 years ago… We all have cancer cells in us so why wait until we’ve fertilized and flourished them to then decide to change and have that change be that much harder? Saying this, though, whenever the change is made is ultimately the right time to make it.)

All this being said, whatever you aunt chooses to do is *her* choice and the best thing for you and her family to do is to fully support her in whatever she chooses to do. Your loving email and concern for her is just lovely to see and I wish you all the best in this journey. It was difficult for me to watch my mother’s “buy in” on western medicine only. I watched my conservative brothers and I try to get her to juice and try things like shark cartilage (we never were raised on this, although we were raised on food from scratch and local foods.) I was impressed to see my one brother do research for her on complimentary medicine. He actually pointed me in that direction, bless him. My mother’s full trust was in western medicine only. She could swallow the horse chemotherapy pills but choked and gagged on supplements, vitamins and juices. I’m saying this because a person’s openness and beliefs plays a big important role here. My mother, it turned out, was resigned to die and she picked out the dress she was going to be buried in from the moment she was diagnosed. That was her choice and when we finally let her be in her choice, the journey for her was a lot more graceful and honoring. I obviously don’t know you or your aunt. I don’t know what her wishes are or her openness or willingness to try other things and it’s not in anyone’s best interest to push things on her that she doesn’t want. It’s not easy (and I speak from much experience here) to offer things to family/friends as alternatives and then just let them be to do whatever they choose to do. I’m doing this with my family all the time and I’m not always successful in the letting them be part. If your aunt wants this, she will find it for herself, and then you can help her in whatever ways it aligns with you the best.

I hope this helps. I’m here to help and not harm. I always realize that my lifestyle can be “threatening” to a good many people and I email/speak from the place of my heart and my own experiences. Everyone is free to do what they want. Free will.

With any and all recommendations that I write here, they are best made when the person needing the information does their own research and makes their own decisions. That’s better than taking what I or others say as the be all and end all of everything. I wouldn’t want anyone to do exactly what I say. Your aunt’s situation is specific to her and her body and she needs to find out what will work best for her.

first day at work for the week and I was once again short staffed so it’s not the easiest to do. Mainly because I have lots of things I want to do but have to totally let them go as they just don’t get done. I wanted to make kim chee and some pesto with the produce I have but had to put it on the back burner to help customers and pack up orders, etc. Thankfully our sewing maven Catherine helped me here and there. Matt helped too when he could. I had 15 minutes left to get a whole bunch of stuff done and my daughter dropped and splattered a green smoothie everywhere. I mention this only because in that 15 minutes I was desperate to make my juice before we had to leave (we had an appt in Burlington which is about an hour away) and the green smoothie she had splattered all over the floor and walls and counter where my juicer was. (I also wanted to get the compost out, wash all the dishes, put all the things away for the night that didn’t get done, etc. A lot to try to accomplish in 15 minutes but I was motivated to do it before the smoothie bomb.)

So needless-to-say, I had to take some deep breaths and change direction. I was still desperate for my juice because I was very hungry but I didn’t want to be snapping. Instead I felt like crying. Day two and I’m definitely having moments of emotions getting to me.

I’ll back up a little bit to the start of the day. I exercised and did about 5.6 miles or so on the stationary bike. I made an incredible juice. it was THE BEST JUICE to drink and I’m now quite grateful for that Hurom slow juicer I got a few months ago. It does pulpy fruit very nicely and I’m not complaining that it makes those kind of juices like a thick nectar. This is what I did (if I remember correctly)

OK, so drank that gorgeous peach nectar and went to work. There was no easing into the day (there hardly ever is) so I just went right into it. Helping customers, packing orders, answering phones, making food. Somewhere around 4 pm I started to get hungry again but still had customers I had to help. 5:45 rolled around and I thought it would be a good time to make a juice. That’s when the smoothie went KABOOM and that’s when I felt like crying. I didn’t cry though. We cleaned up. I made my juice. Someone came in at 5:55 and then I wanted to cry again but thankfully she was self-sufficient and it was quick to be able to close the doors and get to my juice and get out the door to the appointment.

Dinner juice

1 big huge bunch of kale from the garden

4 granny smith apples

2 stalks celery

4-5 carrots

1 small cuke

this was a yummy juice that hit the spot. We went to our appt in Burlington and had to make a pit stop to PEE! OMG, the peeing has been amazing so far! We got home and we were both feeling hungry AGAIN so it was time for another juice. We’re definitely used to eating the heaviest meals at night and this is something to change if we can.

Evening juice – interesting flavors

1 lb local baby lettuce mix

1 small bunch local mint

2 granny smith apples

3 ripe mangos

1 small cuke

1 red bell pepper (because it was the last one)

the mint dominated the flavor. Next was the mango. If I were to make this again, I’d keep the cuke out as that was the third flavor and I didn’t necessarily like it. But I’ve got to say that juicing feels like instant nutrition. Hit the spot.

Matt made a delicious juice this morning:
1 bunch of curly kale from our garden
4 oranges
1 local beet
4 small local carrots

I’m looking forward to getting my produce delivery today. I’m getting kiwi and black cherries and pears and a whole bunch of fruits. It will be yummy to have them. When I was in the shower yesterday, I thought about CHERRIES and decided to order a whole bunch of fruit I don’t eat a lot of. It’s been nice to juice oranges and peaches. I’m glad my juicer will do the pulpier fruits. These things keep me looking forward to juicing and it also helps me to drink all my colors.

OK, I’m about to do a bit of exercising. And then off to the cafe. oh p.s. I’m 4 lbs lighter today. YAY!

a couple hours later we were hungry again so made the same thing (plus 1 red bell pepper) except used sour apples the second time. I only drank 1/2 of mine because it was too sour for me. Matt was happy to have more.

The tip to remember is to do other things to keep yourself occupied instead of thinking about food. The kids had a large green smoothie because I didn’t even want to make a salad (and be tempted by it) and they had some leftovers. (I made a boatload of food last night for them to eat.) The smell of their meals was making me hungry. So that’s when the 2nd juice was made. I did the bills and did some laundry and read a lot of magazines on my day off today. Plus sat in the sunshine for a while. It was a nice day off!

I’m quite happy to tell you that I’m doing way way better. I have a dull ache in side of my leg/hip when I sit only but that huge pain in the iliopsoas is gone and I’m grateful to be able to move and walk with greater ease. I’m still moving slowly and it’s because I’m really babying this leg. I just don’t want to overdo it, I guess.

I was in Montpelier yesterday morning visiting with some friends for a spirit circle that we share together. Then I walked around a bit through the library. They were having a book sale and this is like heaven to me. I found several books that needed to come home with me. I had a tote bag with me that ended up getting super heavy. Also while in Montpelier, I had a follow up chiropractor appt so I carried the tote bag close to my body so it would be easier to carry. Thankfully, it is just 2 buildings away from the library. I was definitely walking slowly on the sidewalk (LOVE sidewalks!) 🙂 and I didn’t really care if people looked at me funny. I was going even more slowly because I had heavy books. Of course I was like, “Linda, do you really need to carry heavy things like this?” But the answer was yes. I love the book sale at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library! 🙂

Leita was happy to see me walking better and when I got on the adjustment table she kept saying, “You are doing so much better!” Then I got on the massage table and she went really deep. She said that my muscles feel LOADS better than they did last week and she was impressed with how deep she could go in them. I got off the table and felt very limber and flexible. I went home and got ready for a workshop I had last night on Green Smoothies.

Matt made me a green juice because I was just starting to feel the effects of a deep tissue massage. If you haven’t had one, they are GREAT but sometimes they can cause headaches in me if I don’t drink enough water. If you think about it, there’s a lot of lactic acid that gets released when muscles are getting deeply massaged. So it’s good to help flush them out. I came home and drank some water but really was jonesing for some greens to help me get adequate nutrition. I don’t ever feel like I’m eating unless there’s a lot of greens in the meal.

After he blended everything in the Vitamix, he filtered it with one of our nut milk bags and then added some spirulina to it. It was a delicious green green drink and it hit the spot.

Somewhere around 4:30 I felt pretty sleepy. I laid down and took a rest. It felt good to be all cozy in bed. The kids were playing with friends and Matt took the day off so he was with them. It was good timing all the way around. I woke up in time to get to the workshop. This is my last workshop for a couple months. I decided to take the summer off so that I could just have a bit less on my plate. Summer is usually a lot of juggling around with kids schedules and so really, it’s just substituting one thing for another, to be honest.

So that’s really my update. I’m still taking the zyflamends, the magnesium, drinking lots of water, massaging my own muscles, walking and keeping them moving. I’m personally quite pleased with the quicker turn around time on this. I went from total immobility to feeling like I’m able to walk and move and sit and pick my feet up whenever I want. I’m not at all at 100% but in the past with these kinds of things, this would have taken a lot longer to get to this point. I asked my chiropractor about this and she said, “Well, if you think about it, for years your body knew how to stay misaligned. The last two years that we’ve been working on your back with the exercises and the adjustments, your body is remembering how to stay aligned. So it only makes sense that you are bouncing back faster.”

She’s a great helper/healer/chiropractor. Bless her heart.

Today I’m going to the cafe to see how I do. I’ve got some orders to fill. Wish me luck!

OH! P.S. This weekend I finally finished Eat, Pray, Love. It’s a really good read. Please join me on the Book List. Time for me to start another book: http://vt-fiddle.com/blog/?p=455

P.S. Before I begin, I’m writing about my OWN experiences here. I’m not advising that you do any of what I’m doing. I *am* advising that you look to your own heart and body for the wisdom it carries and I ask that you find some good support for your health in whatever ways they come to you: ND, chiropractor, massage therapist, etc and so forth. Don’t go doing what I’m doing and then give me grief about it not working for you. We are all connected and yet we are all individuals so take care of yourself, be your own shaman, your own healer and DO NOT rely soley on the anecdotal information of others… OK, so now that’s done, let me get on with my story…

So I’m dealing with an old “war wound” – 9 years old to be exact. I gave birth to two beautiful big babies – the first was 9 lbs 8 oz and the second was 10 lbs 2 oz. The second birth was blissful and amazing. I had a doula (my sister-in-law) with me rubbing lavender oil on me telling me I have the strength of millions of women before me. The second baby was pretty low in my pelvis during that last trimester and she shot out like a canon. I had some serious hip pain from that birth that comes and goes. It used to be super bad – 7 years of pretty bad pain. I got used to it though and managed to do what I could although I was no longer flexible enough for yoga or able to walk or ride my bike. (Doing what I could do meant that I was just living with pain. Sitting, standing, walking, laying down, moving all gave me lots of pain. I just kinda got used to it as a lot of people in this world do.)

I had gone to several chiropractors and physical therapists in the beginning. When one chiropractor told me I’d be in pain forever, I went to another one. (Don’t tell me about forever! Everything in this world changes!) Finally I met a chiropractor that said, “Why would anyone tell you you’d be in pain forever? Everything changes.” I replied, “Wonderful! I just found myself a chiropractor!” In the 2 or so years of seeing her, I’ve been able to get myself to a place where I’m able to walk 5 miles a day, ride a bike, do pilates and other stretches. She helped me to NOT rely on her for help by giving me exercises to do to help strengthen my body back up. HOWEVER, every now and then I have these recurrences of this “war wound.”

This past Sunday was the most recent one. This actually was the worst one yet. I’m not exactly sure what I did or didn’t do. I was having some aches in my hip and front of my leg for over a week. I had seen my chiropractor (whom I hadn’t seen for a couple/few months) and she gave me a tune up. I went home and was still having some aches in the front part of my leg where it meets the pelvis but just kept going on. The tightness in that front muscle (the iliopsoas) was just getting tighter and tighter. On Sunday I was having trouble moving my leg and getting into the shower. Picking up my leg to walk up the stairs was a bit tender, too. On Monday morning it was worse and I thought I would get on the floor and do some of the exercises that I learned to help my pelvis. But whatever I did must have made things worse because a couple hours after I stretched, the tightness turned to spasms. The spasms turned to incredible pain. My body became immobilized and I was shaking like an animal after a trauma.

By about 9 pm I thought I might go to the hospital because the pain was so great but decided to take an ibuprofen and put on some ice packs. It was clear that there was inflammation and I didn’t really want to get poked and prodded whilst in so much pain. So I asked my chiropractor for her opinion the next morning.

She asked me to describe in detail the symptoms and based on what I told her she said that if it were her or someone in her family, she’d probably want to go to the ER or an orthopedist to rule out things like tears and fractures. She said it would be good to go and see and be sent home saying it’s a severe muscle spasm but better safe than sorry. Matt was very willing to take me because he had never seen me in that much pain than I was in the night before. The kids, too, were wanting me to go to a doctor and see what they can do for me.

So I went and I was nervous about getting and x-ray or MRI. To me, these are invasive and I don’t want this or any real allopathic stuff done to me unless there is a broken bone or something. To me, that’s where the allopaths are at their best – fixing broken bones, helping with emergency things like rashes or major allergic reactions. We got to the hospital and Matt borrowed a wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk. Man, those things are great! I was wishing for one at home so I could be wheeled around to and fro, but really, it was a very fleeting wish and not one that I’d ever really want in my house… I met with the doctor and he asked who my primary care physician was. I told him I go to an ND. He asked if I ever go to an allopath and I said I went to an MD but she moved. (I didn’t tell him the real reason why I stopped going to her… I’ll save that for another time…)

Anyway, he did a few stress tests on me and said he feels like I had a few inflammations going on. He pressed into a few muscles and I winced and he confirmed the inflammations. He didn’t feel I needed an x-ray and wouldn’t go with an MRI unless I was having this unbearable pain for several weeks. He thought because overall, I’m healthy and wasn’t showing signs of nerve damage that it was best to treat this conventionally with a prescription pain killer/anti-inflammatory drug and things like going to the chiropractor, putting ice packs on the muscles, etc. He said that I could use ibuprofen but would recommend I take 4 times the dosage on the bottle. (ee-gads! I thought – 4 times! one ibuprofen really fucks up my stomach!)

The nurse came in to give me the prescription and discuss the drug. It had a lot of side effects that I didn’t want to bother finding out if I might get them. With both this drug and the ibuprofen, I was told it can tear up your stomach (literally and figuratively) so she advised to eat a full meal before taking it. And with the drug, it was advised not to take it for more than 7 days because I guess bad things could happen like stomach bleeding!

Hearing the nurse tell me about the drug, I decided I didn’t want any of that. Matt was thinking I was crazy not to take something to help with the swelling and the pain. I said, “if there’s less side effects with ibuprofen, why would I take something else?” And then I started thinking about ibuprofen and I thought I didn’t really want to take that either! LOL

So I asked the chiropractor and she said that there are good alternatives for inflammation and she reminded me about a supplement from New Chapter called Zyflamend. “Oh yea! I have that in the cupboard!” And then I remembered that I have this stuff called Traumeel! OH YAY! I don’t have to run to a store! And then I remembered about greens and how wonderful they have been to me, healing me in so many ways. Greens are good anti-inflammatory medicine. The chiropractor told me about big doses of tumeric and ginger. She said that tumeric in high doses can be thinning to the blood. She also said that if a person is prone to gallstones, then it would be better not to use the tumeric.

So this is what I’m doing right now and I’ll keep you posted on changes and on how I’m feeling:

The pain is pretty tolerable at this point (it’s Wednesday.) It hurts but I have a pretty high pain tolerance (everything gets compared to labor…) I went to the chiropractor this morning and she adjusted me and gave me a good massage. My muscles feel quite weak from the spasms they’ve been doing and continue to do. I’m massaging them 3 x/day as my chiropractor showed me in order to get circulation going in them. I’m drinking lots of water and liquids. I’m having green green juices.

Matt made me one today that had:

• local kale
• local radish greens
• local lettuces
• an orange
• 2 local apples
• spirulina
• filtered water
He buzzed that in the Vitamix and poured it through one of our V-Shape nut milk bags. It filtered out really well and was really yummy. I gave a taste to my son and Matt had some too.

I’ve taken double the dosage of zyflamend today. 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. I’ve rubbed the traumeel on me a couple of times. Friends have recommended magnesium so tomorrow I’ll add some CALM to my water and see what that does. I’ve used the ice pack several times today.

Today I’ve been able to sit up again and walk around with a cane. I’m very slow moving and feel highly connected to my grandmother (she used to walk with a cane after she had half her foot removed from diabetes.) I keep saying, “Hi grandma!” as I gimp along with my shiny blue cane. I was able to go to most of the school play today but found that my muscles were shaking uncontrollably when I got there. They subsided and then on the walk home I was all shaky again. This, I’m guessing, is because my muscles are very strained and it is a great effort for me to walk. Perhaps I was overdoing it for today but I really wanted to see the plays. As it was I had to leave for the last part and missed some of my son’s play. He was very disappointed and I feel badly about it. He understood but you know how that goes.

Since coming home from the shaky walk back, I’ve been resting. I put a hot water bottle on my back as I iced my leg, pelvis and hips. I put some more traumeel on my leg and I cried out whatever needed to get cried out. I’m feeling good at the moment. My bed is comfy and the company is good. I’m off to clip some nut milk bags now. I’ll keep you posted on this pain and inflammation journey of 9 years. 🙂